Transcriptome profiles identify the common responsive genes to drought stress in two Elymus species.

Elymus, the largest genus of the Triticeae Dumort, is a forage grass in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, where the climate has gradually become increasingly dry in recent years. To understand the mechanisms of the response to drought stress in Elymus species, we first investigated physiological and biochemical responses to polyethylene glycol (PEG-6000) simulated drought stress in two Elymus species, Elymus nutans and Elymus sibiricus, and found that E. nutans was more tolerant to drought stress than E. sibiricus. De novo transcriptome analysis of these two Elymus species treated with or without 10 % PEG-6000 revealed that a total of 1695 unigenes were commonly regulated by drought treatment in these two Elymus species, with 1614 unigenes up-regulated and 81 unigenes down-regulated. The coexpressed differentially expressed genes (DEGs) were enriched in regulation of transcription and gene expression in the GO database. KEGG pathway analysis indicated plant hormone signaling transduction were mostly enriched in co-expressed DEGs. Furthermore, genes annotated in the plant hormone signaling transduction were screened from co-expressed DEGs, and found that abscisic acid plays the major role in the drought stress tolerance of Elymus. Meanwhile, transcription factors screened from co-expressed DEGs were mainly classified into the ERF subfamily and WRKY, DREB, and HSF family members. Our results provide further reference for studying the response mechanism and culturing highly tolerant grasses of the Elymus species under drought stress.

Photo-protective mechanisms in reed canary grass to alleviate photo-inhibition of PSII on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Due to its characteristic of high biomass yield potential, there is considerable interest in cultivating Phalaris arundinacea L. cv. 'chuancaoyin No.3' (reed canary grass) on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau where there is an abundance of alpine steppe meadow and a potential large market for animal husbandry. In this study, we 1) investigate whether reed canary grass exhibits superior productive capacity to Elymus nutans 'Aba' (E. nutans), ordinary common pasture, during the long warm days of summer at high-altitude; and 2) compare the cold tolerance between reed canary grass and E. nutans, including photosynthesis, photo-inhibition, and photo-protection. The results suggest that reed canary grass exhibits higher photosynthetic capacity compared to E. nutans at latitudes of the cool temperate zone. Meanwhile, cold-induced photo-inhibition and photo-damage at high altitudes in reed canary grass were due to both stomatal and non-stomatal limitation, and the enhancement in photo-respiration, thermal dissipation, and Mehler reaction are important processes to minimize the negative effects of high elevation and a cold environment.

[NIRS for Predicting Nutritive Value of Elymus sibiricus].

Siberian wildrye (Elymus sibiricus L.) is one of the predominant pasture species in Qinghai-Tibet plateau of China. It supplies a large number of fodders to domestic animals in spring and winter, and provides a large proportion of the summer and autumn grazing in these alpine regions. Crude protein (CP), acid detergent fiber (ADF), neutral detergent fiber (NDF) and in vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD) are the most important aspects of nutritive value of forages. A successful application of near infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) in combination with partial least square regression (PLSR) for the determination of four parameters (CP, ADF, NDF and IVDMD) of Siberian wildrye was developed. The standard errors of calibration (SEC, %DM) and Rcal(2) values (in parentheses) were 0.3299(0.9945), 0.7799(0.9499), 1.3430(0.9133), and 1.3762(0.9822) for CP, ADF, NDF and IVDMD equations, respectively. The standard errors of prediction (SEP, %DM) and Rval(2) values (in parentheses) were 0.3621(0.9938), 0.7878(0.9449), 1.3852(0.8907), and 1.4303(0.9790) for CP, ADF, NDF and IVDMD, respectively. A good correlation (r>0.9438) was found between results from NIRS and the traditional chemical method, and residual predictive deviation (RPD) ranged from 3.02 to 12.63. It was concluded that NIR spectroscopic technique associated with chemometrics is sufficiently sensitive to allow the accurate prediction of the concentrations of compo nents (CP, ADF and NDF) and IVDMD of Siberian wildrye.

[Potential Applicability of Fecal NIRs: A Review].

Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) is an inexpensive, rapid, environment-friendly and non-invasive analytical technique that has been extensively applied in the analysis of the dietary attributes and the animal products. Acquisition of dietary attributes is essential for nutritional diagnoses to provide animals with reasonable diet. Traditionally, the calibration equations for the prediction of dietary attributes (e. g. crude protein) are developed from feed NIR spectra and the results of conventional chemical analysis (i. e. reference data). It is difficult to obtain the NIR spectra of forages consumed by grazing animals, so the method of this calibration is inappropriate for free-grazing herbivores. Feces, as the animal's metabolites, contain the information about both the animal's diet and the animal itself. Recently, Fecal-NIRS (F. NIRS) has been directly used to monitor diet information (botanical composition, chemical composition and digestibility), based on correlation between reference data and fecal NIR profile. Subsequently, some additional application (such as sex and species discrimination, reproductive and parasite status) of F. NIRS also is outlined. In the last, application of NIRS in animal manure is summarized. NIRS was shown to be an alternative to conventional wet chemical methods for analyzing some nutrient concentrations in animal manure rapidly. Overall, this paper proves that F. NIRS is a rapid and valid tool for the determination of the dietary attributes and of the physiological status of animal, although more efforts need to be done to improve the accuracy of the F. NIRS technique. Several researchers in English have reviewed the applications of F. NIRS. In China, however, there is a paucity of research and application regarding F. NIRS. We expect that this paper in Chinese will be helpful to the development of F. NIRS in China. At the same time, we propose NIRS as a simple and rapid analytical method for predicting the main chemical composition (dry matter, organ matter, total solid, volatile solid, total nitrogen, total Kjeldahl nitrogen and ammonium nitrogen) in animal manure.

Molecular insights into the genetic diversity of Hemarthria compressa germplasm collections native to southwest China.

Start codon targeted polymorphism (SCoT) analysis was employed to distinguish 37 whipgrass (Hemarthria compressa L.) clones and assess the genetic diversity and population structure among these genotypes. The informativeness of markers was also estimated using various parameters. Using 25 highly reproducible primer sets, 368 discernible fragments were generated. Of these, 282 (77.21%) were polymorphic. The number of alleles per locus ranged from five to 21, and the genetic variation indices varied. The polymorphism information content (PIC) was 0.358, the Shannon diversity index (H) was 0.534, the marker index (MI) was 4.040, the resolving power (RP) was 6.108, and the genotype index (GI) was 0.782. Genetic similarity coefficients (GS) between the accessions ranged from 0.563 to 0.872, with a mean of 0.685. Their patterns observed in a dendrogram constructed using the unweighted pair group method with arithmetic mean analysis (UPGMA) based on GS largely confirmed the results of principal coordinate analysis (PCoA). PCoA was further confirmed by Bayesian model-based STRUCTURE analysis, which revealed no direct association between genetic relationship and geographical origins as validated by Mantel's test (r = 0.2268, p = 0.9999). In addition, high-level genetic variation within geographical groups was significantly greater than that between groups, as determined by Shannon diversity analysis, analysis of molecular variance (AMOVA) and Bayesian analysis. Overall, SCoT analysis is a simple, effective and reliable technique for characterizing and maintaining germplasm collections of whipgrass and related species.

[Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy analytic model established for the IVDMD of Cichorium intybus L].

Chicory (Cichorium intybus L.) is a new type of forage grasses of high yield and quality with a great value of popularization and utilization. In vitro dry matter digestibility (IVDMD) is one of the important indicators of the nutritional value of forage evaluation. For the study of establishment of Chicory IVDMD NIRS quantitative analysis model, seventy-two species with different genotypes, different growth stages of 204 chicory samples of aboveground material were collected, and by Fourier transform near-infrared diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, through the use of different regression algorithms, can comparing different spectral ranges and spectral pretreatment methods, eight chicory IVDMD NIRS calibration models were established, and the best calibration model parameters were chosen. Its calibration coefficient of determination (Ri) and external validation coefficient of determination (Rval2) were 0.95317 and 0.90455, calibration standard deviation (RMSEC) and predictive standard deviation (RMSEP) was 1.977 99% and 2.008 82%, and the correlation coefficient (r) between predicted values and chemical values was 0.95108. The results show that using NIRS to determine chicory IVDMD is feasible, and provided a rapid analysis method for the determination IVDMD of chicory.

[Application of near infrared spectroscopy technology (NIRS) in forage field].

The majority of nutrients in ruminants and other herbivores come from forages. Forage quality not only affects the growth and production efficiency of livestock, but also determines the final output and quality of livestock products. Forage quality mainly depends on nutrient concentrations and their digestibility, palatability and the level of presence of antiquality factors and mycotoxins in forage. Near infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS) has been widely used in many research areas because it is a inexpensive, rapid, simple and nondestructive technique offering the potential for qualitative and quantitative analysis. The present paper briefly introduces the principle and characteristics of NIRS, detailedly expounds the application of NIRS in forage quality. In addition, other applications of near infrared spectroscopy technique in forage are also discussed, including forage breeding, identification of variety and classification by kind. This paper comprehensively reviews the status quo of application of NIRS in forage filed, in order to contribute to promoting development of NIRS in this field in China.